Saturday, August 31, 2002 - Park Jefferson Speedway
Heat - We were again riding high coming off of our 3rd feature win of the season. John would start 4th in his heat race and would be bumped by Jimmy Cole in turn one of the first lap, but hold on to finish that lap in 2nd position. He would move by pole sitter Jesse Cowles the following lap and coast easily to a 2nd consecutive heat race victory.
A Feature - John would set out from the 6th position in the A main. On the very first lap, John narrowly missed a big crash on the back stretch that would send at least 6 cars to the pits for the night. The incident started as Jesse Cowles would spin leaving turn 2 and collect several cars. Those not returning to the race were: Cowles #83, Johnson #z98, Smith #88d, Halverson #5h, Rich Hesse #31h, & Fridrich #7x. With Hesse in the pits for the 2nd straight week we again stood to make up some ground in the points race. John would restart in 4th position, with only 11 cars restarting. On the first lap John would make a move below Paul Hemmingson's #1 after Hemmingson went high in turn 1. Paul would come down into John's right front, taking out his right front tire. John would come to rest in turn 2 bringing out the caution. He came to the pits for a new tire and was back out before the race resumed to restart 10th. John would quickly climb to 6th in the running order and would battle with the #20 of Mark Nolen for several laps the two battled side by side on several occasions with John being unable to take the position. With just a few laps remaining Nolen would have mechanical problems and at the same time Jimmy Cole would drop from the race with problems as well. John would move up to 4th place behind Charlie Clark, Rick Schau and Kyle Koster. Those four would finish in that order with John taking a 2nd consecutive top-5 finish.
Standings - With Rich Hesse falling out John will close to about 50 points of the points lead, and will trail 2nd place Kyle Koster by 40 points with just 2 weeks remaining. Charlie Clark's win allowed him to move into a tie for 3rd place with John. The points race that didn't exist just a few weeks ago has developed into a serious one. Koster will be within 10-15 points of Hesse. Our sights are still on the next position, but Hesse's recent troubles have us again thinking of the championship! |
